The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism (for Dummies!)

For more than a year, I've been working with Koshikidake Shokai, the Soke of the Koryū Shugen Honshū order of shugendō. I first met Koshikidake-san in mid-2013, and after a little discussion, I agreed to take on a couple of efforts to assist in expanding the group's outreach beyond Japan: developing and putting up an English-language web site and ghost-writing a proposal for a book on shugendō to submit to American publishers. I put in many, many hours of work — all on a volunteer basis — to accomplish these goals.

In the Beginningless Beginning, there was Ame no Minaka-nushi no Kami, the Ruling Spirit of the Center of Creation, and Absolutely Nothing Else At All.Absolutely Nothing Else At All faced the outside of the Center of Creation, where Ame no Minakanushi no Kami dwelt, and spontaneously, simultaneously, reacted to the Divine Virtue by on the one hand expanding it to fill the Endless Emptiness and create Heaven, becoming Takamimusubi no Kami, the "Exalted Creator Spirit"; on the other, reflecting and compressing and digesting the Divine Virtue, forming the Earth and becoming Kamimusubi no Kami,

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Ame No Minaka-nushi No Kami, Takamimusubi No Kami, and Kamimusubi No Kami are collectively known as the Musubi-Kami.Shintō — the Way of the Kami — was originally known as "Musubi no Michi", the Way of Musubi (産霊), so the term deserves a little unpacking.The term "musu", represented by the kanji 産, has an association with the concepts of giving birth to something, or producing something.

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Most of Shintō mythology comes from the first volume of the Kojiki, the "Chronicle of Ancient Times". The Kojiki and the Nihonshoki, compiled around the same general time, are the oldest existing Japanese histories, dating from the beginning of the Nara period, early in the 8th Century.The Kojiki was compiled by order of the emperor Tenmu Ten-Nō, around the year 684. Prior to that time, there had been long-circulated histories among the various nobles families, notably works known as the Teiki and Kyūji.

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I've been pretty remiss in updating this site lately, but I plead busy-ness and distraction. Among a variety of other things, I've been working on an English-language site for the Koryū Shugen Honshū, a group based in Higashine, Yamagata, but which is looking to do more teaching in Europe and North America.